ACS Publications has a long history of supporting OA choices, and of evolving our workflows and institutional partnerships to meet the needs of researchers worldwide. Here’s a comprehensive look at many ways in which ACS Publications continues to ensure we’re supporting the community in their publishing choices.
For many, choosing open access publishing is preferred as a way of ensuring their scientific progress reaches the widest possible audience. ACS Publications has a long history of not only supporting OA choices, but evolving and expanding our workflows and institutional partnerships to meet the needs of researchers worldwide. Here’s a comprehensive look at the many ways in which ACS Publications continues to ensure we’re supporting the community in their publishing choices.
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Expanding Open Access Publishing Choices
An Expanding Portfolio of Trusted Journals
Growth by the Numbers
Expanding Open Access Publishing Choices
- Historical support: Did you know that ACS Publications kickstarted OA across our journals by offering more than $60 million in stimulus to authors? For more than a decade now, we've worked continuously to develop the most efficient OA publishing process in the industry, and broaden access options for authors, helping the chemistry community to adopt open science practices at the pace they require.
- Trusted fully open access journals: In 2014, ACS Central Science was launched as ACS' first fully open access journal, followed by ACS Omega in 2015. The trend continued with the launch of JACS Au and the ACS Au family of journals in 2020, providing even more choices for authors who prefer to publish in fully open access journals.
An Expanding Portfolio of Trusted Journals
- Collaborative open access journals: Since 2022, we’ve entered into partnerships with research institutions to launch new journals including Chem & Bio Engineering, Chemical & Biomedical Imaging, Environment & Health, Precision Chemistry—and our two newest additions, Artificial Photosynthesis and Polymer Science & Technology.
- Hybrid journals: In addition to our fully open access journals, we also offer authors the ability to publish open access in our hybrid journals, which offer a combination of OA and subscription-access articles.
Growth by the Numbers
- Increase in fully open access articles: The number of articles in ACS' fully OA journals has seen a significant increase over the past few years—and in the same timeframe, the number of OA articles published across all ACS journals has nearly doubled.
- More authors choosing OA: As OA publishing options continue to grow and become more attainable for researchers worldwide, it is no surprise that more authors are choosing to take this route. Between 2020 and 2023, the number of corresponding authors publishing open access articles in ACS journals increased by 95%. This cadre of over 12,000 authors published almost 16,000 articles in 2023 alone: a 75% increase since 2021.
- A growing quantity of trusted research: While the proportion of OA articles published across our journals has increased, it’s noteworthy that the amount of subscription-access articles published in our hybrid journals has also grown. As of August 2024, this subscription-access content is growing at a rate of around 4% per year. ACS read and publish agreements, developed in partnership with research institutions and consortia, are an effective way to support both access to essential new research and your OA publishing goals.
Learn More and Start Your Journey
ACS Publications aims to provide authors with flexible ways to publish their research, to make scientific research accessible to the widest possible audience, and to foster a more inclusive and collaborative research community. We’re investing in technologies, procedures, and staff to ensure that readers can trust the research they read in our publications, and that authors can expect the highest quality publishing experience when they choose an ACS journal. Alongside these initiatives, our support of open access is steadfast and we will continue working to enable the sustainable growth of open science at the pace that the global chemistry community requires.
Much of this growth is due to strong partnerships with over 1600 institutions worldwide who have read and publish agreements with ACS. If you’d like to check if yours is among them, visit the ACS Open Science site.
If you represent a research institution and would like to find out more about how an ACS read and publish agreement can benefit your community, visit the ACS Solutions Center.